Ducks and dicks If the American Repertory Theatre is renewing its vows to David Mamet, several of whose plays it premiered in the 1990s, the double bill of The Duck Variations and Sexual Perversity in Chicago will do nicely for something old and something blue.

Of myth and men There is more pageantry than either Stalinism or Stoker in The Communist Dracula Pageant , Anne Washburn’s ambitious jumble of a Romanian-history play now in its world premiere from the American Repertory Theatre.

Fall on the boards There are tours to the former Czechoslovakia, Romania, Italy, Iraq, the Aran Islands, and even the Underworld on area stages this fall.